`Doogie' Star Plays Killer

November 21, 1993|By PATRICIA BRENNAN The Washington Post

When Neil Patrick Harris set out to separate himself from Doogie Howser, the precocious adolescent physician he played for four seasons, he chose a role that would have made the young doctor shudder: He plays Brian Hannigan, a Maryland teen-ager who kills his adoptive parents.

A child who idolized Dr. Doogie should not watch A Family Torn Apart (tonight on NBC).

This is the story of Joe and Maureen Hannigan (John Jackson and Linda Kelsey), a religiously devout couple with high expectations and rigid standards. Their three adopted sons are played by Harris, Johnny Galecki and little Eric Lloyd.

Sadly, this movie is based on a real family in Annapolis and a book about the case, Sudden Fury, by Leslie Walker.

"We did a dramatization based on the case," Harris said. "... We had to change certain things. They would have just seemed too far-fetched."

Truth, it seems, can be just as horrifying as even TV's sometimes gratuitously violent fiction.

Author Walker said she was pleased with the film, but she said abuse was not her book's message.

"These parents were not supposed to be portrayed as monsters," she said. "I felt very strongly that his [Brian Hannigan's) foster-care background was key to the story."

NBC's movie is based on the case of Robert and Kathryn Swartz.

Rebellious Michael (played by Galecki of Roseanne), who had been returned to state custody and sent to reform school, was immediately suspected of the murders, but the killer turned out to be 17-year-old Larry, a Broadneck High School student.

Larry Swartz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and served nine years of a 12-year sentence. He was released in January.

But Michael Swartz took a darker path. Released at 18 and disowned by his family, he had no support and fell in with a paroled murderer, Walker said.

In July 1990, just before he was to have joined Walker for a book tour, Michael Swartz was charged with stabbing a man to death. Now 28, Swartz is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.

"He had a much more abrasive personality than Larry," Walker said. "The tragedy of Michael was that when Larry killed their parents, he left Michael homeless and family-less at a crucial time in his life. He was in reform school, he was released and the extended members of his family disowned him.